


I'll (Not) Be Home For Christmas

by Ksue



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 17:22:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5506379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ksue/pseuds/Ksue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Torchwood mission takes Rose far from home on her first Christmas with TenToo. </p>
<p>A bit of Christmas fluff written for TimePetals Weekly Ficlet Prompt on Tumblr. Prompt: "We're together now, that's what's important."</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll (Not) Be Home For Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> Just something I threw together for the prompt. Unbeta'd and a bit rushed, so I'm not entirely happy with it, but whatever it was fun. :)

Two days to Christmas. Less if one considered the time difference between Chicago and London. Rose glanced at the calendar on her mobile and tried to mentally calculate how many more hours this mission might take, and how many hours it would be to take a zeppelin back to London, assuming she could even catch one at the last minute. 

It was her first Christmas with the Doctor in Pete’s World, it was meant to be special. The Doctor had come up with a whole list of things to do during the month of December to get them into the Christmas spirit, and they’d already missed a good number of them because the Chicago Torchwood office needed Rose’s team urgently. They couldn’t miss Christmas too. The Doctor would be devastated. So would Rose, if she was being honest. Maybe it was just a day and she was putting too much pressure on it, like Jake said, but it felt important to Rose. She wanted to spend Christmas with the Doctor. 

“Everyone have their comms?” Rose asked, situating hers into her ear. Everyone affirmed and then waited for more instruction.

“Guns stay outside unless the mission goes bad, this is strictly diplomatic. If you’re in the first wave with me, your gun stays in the holster. We want to talk to these aliens, not scare them. Got it?” Rose asked. Again, everyone murmured that they had it. 

“Rose,” Jake said, shouldering his way to the front of the group. Rose arched an eyebrow, waiting for him to say whatever was on his mind. “Just remember, you can understand them, but we can’t. Use the signals if they start to get agitated or combative.”

“I can handle it, Jake,” Rose said. She was the reason their team had been called in. The aliens that crash landed in the Chicago River didn’t have translators, and they didn’t speak English. Since Rose still had bits of the TARDIS in her head, amplified by the baby TARDIS growing in her backyard, she was one of two people on Earth who could communicate with them. And since the Doctor was never cleared for field duty, it was up to her.

“I know, but you have this habit of thinking you can salvage a situation that’s spiraling out of control, and then we’re all caught by surprise when the aliens start trying to kill us. I’m just asking you to give us a warning before it gets to that point,” Jake explained. Rose rolled her eyes.

“It won’t get to that point.” She hoped it wouldn’t, anyway. Everyone was already on edge. When the aliens first crashed, misunderstanding and fear led to a fight with losses on both sides. It took Rose the better part of three days to get the aliens to agree to a conversation.

“I know you think that, but…” Jake began. 

“Stand down, Simmonds,” Rose snapped. She was rarely so authoritative with her team, but she was in no mood for Jake’s attitude. She wanted to get the mission over with and get home in time for Christmas with her love.   
Rose approached the crashed ship at the appointed time. She waited in the middle of Michigan Avenue, like the aliens requested. The area was roped off to keep civilians from getting hurt, so it was eerily silent as she waited. Cold wind whipped at her face, apparently the “windy city” moniker was appropriate.

A few minutes passed before the door to the ship opened and three of the aliens stepped out. Two of them hung back, like Jake and Thomas did for her, while the leader stepped forward to meet Rose. They looked as alien as they could get. They looked vaguely reptilian, dressed in medieval looking leather trousers and coats. 

“Hello,” Rose said. “I’m Commander Rose Tyler.”

“Greetings, Commander Rose Tyler. I am Lieutenant Aviphu.”

“Welcome to Earth, Lieutenant Aviphu. Will you state your species and home planet?” 

The two spoke for a few long minutes. Rose took note of the species and planet, and took a scan to upload to the Torchwood database. The aliens apologized for the loss of life, and Rose did too. They were peaceful, but powerful, and they’d been scared. Her team was getting restless and jumpy, not knowing what was being said. 

“Do you need assistance getting off-world?” Rose asked as the conversation wound down. She was eager to wrap up the parlay so she could finish up the paperwork and get on a zeppelin.

“No, thank you. Our ship is nearly repaired.”

“Then we’re all set,” Rose said. “I’m sorry for the trouble, and I wish you luck.”

“The same to you, Rose Tyler.” Rose smiled and waited until the aliens were back in the ship to turn around and dial the Doctor. 

“Rose?” the Doctor answered, sounding a bit breathless.

“Just finished the mission. I’ve got paperwork left, but I think I can get it finished in time to get home for Christmas,” Rose said. The Doctor whooped and repeated her words to someone else, probably Jackie or Tony. There was more cheering. 

“Get to work, love,” the Doctor ordered. Rose laughed. “See you for Christmas.”

#

The thing Rose hated most about being a Field Team Leader at Torchwood was the endless amount of paperwork she had to fill out at the end of every mission, even for such a simple one like they’d just wrapped up. 

She was in hour four of paperwork hell, and two-thirds of the way through her stack, when Jake came flying through the door. Rose leapt to her feet thinking the world was ending, but he shook his head. 

“Snow,” he gasped. Rose frowned.

“What?” 

“It’s snowing, you have to see it,” he insisted. Rose shook her head and sat back down to her work.

“I’ve seen snow before, ta. So have you. I’d rather get this finished and admire it from the window of a zeppelin.” Jake came the rest of the way into the makeshift office and grabbed Rose by the elbow, pulling her from her seat. 

“Oi!” she shouted.

“That’s just it,” Jake said, pulling her along until he was certain she’d follow of her own accord. “There’s a storm coming in off the lake, a right blizzard. We’re not getting a zeppelin.”

Rose’s heart dropped and she followed Jake to the main doors of Torchwood Seven. In the four hours she’d been hunkered over her paperwork, six inches of snow had fallen. The world was nothing but grey and white. 

“But…” Rose started. 

“I know. They said it’s lake effect snow, it falls really heavy, really fast. They’re already cancelling flights,” Jake explained. Rose sighed and tried to fight back tears. Maybe they could still get a zeppelin out when the snow cleared. 

“I’ll finish the rest of the paperwork in London,” Rose said. “Garrett can bugger off if he has a problem with it. We’ll go to the airport and try to get on the first flight out. Or Pete might be able to send a zeppelin for us, once they let them start landing.”

On the way back to the office to pack up, Rose dialed the Doctor. 

“I might not make it after all,” she told him.

“What?!”

“There’s some really heavy snow, they’re cancelling flights. I’ll try to figure it out, but don’t get your hopes up just yet,” she said. 

“Bloody useless having a TARDIS in the backyard if I can’t use it to come get you,” the Doctor grumbled. Rose laughed. The TARDIS was still too young to do much more than connect with them telepathically. He couldn’t even have taken it to pick her up at Tesco’s. 

“I know, Doctor, but it will be okay,” she promised, more for herself than for him. 

“I know,” he said, still grousing. “Just, be safe. I love you.”

The words still gave her a thrill, still made her smile and blush. “I love you too.”

#

The snow didn’t stop until the next day, Christmas Eve. By then, Rose and her team were fighting against thousands of other people for a spot on a zeppelin, and since they never had tickets in the first place, they were bumped time and time again for passengers whose flight had been cancelled. 

“I’m calling Pete,” Rose said, pulling out her mobile. “I think it’s our fastest option at this point.”

“We still won’t be home in time,” Jake said. “It’s almost midnight in London, and it’s sixteen hours round trip.”

“It will be tight, but we might be able to make it before the day is officially over,” Rose insisted. She dialed Pete.

“Rose? You alright?” The sounds of the Vitex Christmas party filtered through the phone. 

“We need a zeppelin,” she said, without preamble. “We can’t get on any of the flights leaving Chicago. If I’m going to be home for any part of Christmas day, I need you to send a zeppelin for us.”

“It’s going to be hard getting a pilot on Christmas. I’ll do what I can, hold tight.”

Rose and her team waited. And waited. And waited some more. It seemed like the universe was working against them, trying it’s best to keep them from getting home for Christmas. Finally Pete called with a pilot and a zeppelin, but at that point, there was no hope of getting home in time. 

“Thanks Pete. I’ll let you know when we take off,” Rose said, trying her best not to sound upset. Pete tried so hard, she didn’t want him to feel badly. 

“I’m sorry Rose. Oh, the Doctor wants to speak with you…” Pete trailed off and Rose could just imagine the Doctor prying the mobile out of his hands. She could also imagine him in the tux that was required for the party. That was a present she would have loved to unwrap in the wee hours of Christmas morning. 

“Rose, don’t worry, alright?” the Doctor said. His voice was a bit watery, like he’d been drinking. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

“Yeah, okay Doctor. Be safe, don’t drink too much. Remember you’re human now.” The only time they truly ran into trouble with the Doctor’s new physiology was when he drank. It affected him much faster. 

“Psht,” he said. “Only part human.”

“Still, Doctor, don’t get too pissed, please. For me?”

“Anything for you, my Rose.”

They rang off and Rose clutched her mobile to her chest, wishing the Doctor could reach through it and hug her back. Jake clapped her on the shoulder and pointed to the pub just a ways down the concourse. 

“Fancy a pint?” he asked. “I’m buying.”

“Could do with something a bit stronger, but yeah.” They settled in and Rose ordered bourbon. She nursed it slowly, the way Pete taught her when she first arrived in this world. Jake sat beside her, nursing his pint. 

“I’m sorry you won’t be home for Christmas,” Jake said. “I know it was important to you.”

“It’s just…it’s our first Christmas.”

“I thought you had one in the other universe? Jackie said something about a killer Christmas tree one time.” Rose shook her head.

“I mean our first Christmas with this…version of him. And our first Christmas as a proper couple. I know, I know, there will be other Christmases, but this is our first. You only get so many firsts,” Rose explained. Jake nodded.

“I know, Rose.”

They sat drinking together in the bar until Rose was properly pissed and Jake was drowsy with all the beer swimming through his system. Leaning heavily on each other, they wound their way back to where the rest of the team waited. 

The zeppelin arrived and Rose and her team filed on, dropping into their seats and promptly curling up to sleep. Rose tapped out a text to Pete and the Doctor, promising to be home soon, and followed suit. 

She slept the entire eight hour flight, only waking as Jake shook her to tell her they were landing in five minutes. Her heart started to race all at once, like a horse galloping out of the gate, and she scrambled to make herself look presentable. She looked at her mobile. It was the day after Christmas.

Usually Rose was last off the zeppelin, but this time her team insisted she be first. She thought to protest, but her desire to see the Doctor overrode it, and she ran down the stairs to the ground to find the Doctor just a few feet away. As soon as he saw her, he opened his arms, catching her as she ran into them. 

He hugged her tightly, her legs swinging back and forth as he lifted her from the ground. She peppered kisses over his face until she reached his lips, where she lingered. 

“I’m so sorry I miss Christmas,” she whispered against his mouth. The Doctor set her down and lifted his hand to her cheek, tracing his thumb over her skin. 

“It doesn’t matter,” he promised. “We’re together now, that’s what’s important.”

They bundled into the car Pete sent with the Doctor and cuddled together in the back as the driver wound his way through London traffic. The Doctor sifted his fingers through her hair, making her pleasantly drowsy. She pressed her nose into his sweater, breathing in the scent of him, recommitting it to memory the way she did after every mission. 

“Jackie wanted us to stop by before we go home,” the Doctor whispered. Rose groaned, but nodded. 

“Sure,” she said. The Doctor chuckled and pressed a kiss to her forehead. 

They arrived at the Tyler mansion, still strung up with fairy lights and wreathes. It made Rose’s heart ache. The Doctor took her hand, threading their fingers together, and led her inside. 

“Merry Christmas!” Rose jumped at the cry from her family. Pete, Jackie, and Tony stood near the massive Christmas tree, surrounded by presents. Rose could see a full Christmas dinner on the table in the dining room, Christmas crackers waiting on every plate. Her eyes filled with tears as the Doctor wrapped his arms around her and pressed his chest to her back. 

“We saved Christmas for you, love,” he said. Rose smiled and turned in his arms, reaching up for a kiss.

“Merry Christmas, Doctor.”

“Merry Christmas, Rose.”


End file.
